Tax collection firm may have double-reported payments

City of Houston and HISD officials pledged Tuesday to audit records from their longtime collection vendor amid concerns the firm may have double-reported some payments to minority businesses in complying with affirmative-action goals.

The firm, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, said it also would review its records but admitted no errors.

The issue arose after state Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said his law firm - one of Linebarger's subcontractors - did not receive as much money as records from the city and the Houston Independent School District suggest.

The Houston Chronicle reported Monday that Linebarger, which holds lucrative contracts to collect late property taxes for numerous local governments, boasts a payroll of political heavyweights. The Houston City Council on Wednesday may consider whether to make Linebarger share a piece of the city's property tax collections with its chief rival, Perdue Brandon Fielder Collins and Mott, for the first time.

The Chronicle used public records to report on the influential officials the firms hire. Locally, records appear to show that Linebarger listed the same payment to some minority- and women-owned businesses under its HISD contract and its city contracts.

Officials with both governments said their rules presume subcontractors are paid for work they do under their specific contract without overlap. Each month, the city and HISD require Linebarger to report how much the firm paid its minority subcontractors, an effort to ensure the company is meeting its affirmative action goals.

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"There should be no comingling of this contract with another entity's contract," said Tanya Makany-Rivera, spokeswoman for the city's Office of Business Opportunity, which tracks these goals. "Whatever we get into our system assumes it was all city work."

HISD's general manager of business assistance, Alexis Licata, agreed.

"I am under the assumption every month when I get that (report) that the firms and the dollar amounts listed pertain solely to our contract with them," she said of Linebarger.

Turner's law firm, for example, is listed as receiving $10,000 a month under Linebarger's contract with HISD to collect delinquent property taxes and $10,000 a month under the firm's city contract to collect municipal court fines.

Turner, however, said his firm is paid a single, $10,000 fee per month - not $20,000 - for its work.

Licata said she plans to audit Linebarger's records to ensure the firm is fulfilling its pledge to devote 25 percent of its HISD contract to minority-owned firms.

City Attorney David Feldman said he also would investigate to verify Linebarger is meeting its 24 percent affirmative action goal.

"Based on the information you're furnishing to me, we're going to have to take a closer look at their reports and whether or not the information they're reporting to the city is accurate," Feldman said.

Linebarger spokesman Joe Householder said the law firm complies with the reporting requirements and is committed to diversity.

"Your inquiry has prompted us to do an in-depth analysis of all the reporting, and if there are any errors - and we're not saying there are - we'll certainly correct them," Householder said.

Householder added that when property owners fail to pay city taxes, they also fail to pay HISD taxes - which means that a subcontractor's time cannot necessarily be split between the two entities.

That explanation, however, doesn't account for another factor. Some Linebarger subcontractors have been paid under the city's municipal courts contract in recent years, not the city property tax deal, according to city records. Turner's law firm and state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, also an attorney, are listed on the city courts contract and on the HISD property tax contract.

If the firm is double reporting the amounts, that would mean the subcontractors received less than what Linebarger reported to the city and to HISD, figures that appeared in the Chronicle Monday.

The school district has tracked payments only since 2011. The city contracts cover delinquent property tax collections since 2005 and municipal court collections since 2009.

These records, for example, showed that Turner's law firm received more than $1 million. Turner said his firm has been paid $10,000 per month since at least fall 2009. Since the HISD amounts may have been double reported, his firm appears to have earned several hundred thousand dollars less than records suggest.

The same may apply to the firm's other high-profile subcontractors, including Rep. Thompson; Houston political consultant Marc Campos; Marchris Robinson, an attorney and brother of Houston Community College trustee Carroll Robinson; Kippy Caraway, of Mayor Annise Parker's executive staff; lobbyist Darryl Carter; and an investigations firm owned by Nicole West, a close friend of school trustee Paula Harris.

Caraway and Campos declined comment; Turner declined comment on the apparent double-reporting. Others could not be reached.